Rich Miner, a co-founder of the mobile operating system Android, the company that gave birth to Google’s mobile operating system, has joined the board of Dialpad, a cloud-based office phone and communications company that until today had been known as Switch.co.
Android Co-Founder Rich Miner Joins Board at Dialpad, the Former Switch.co
The startup is run by a group of ex-Googlers who aim to shake up how companies communicate by phone.
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Miner led the early efforts to build the Android operating system, co-founding the company before it was acquired by Google in 2005, and more recently has been a partner at GV — the former Google Ventures — with a mandate to lead more investments in mobile deals.
Dialpad announced Miner’s appointment alongside the name change. Dialpad is headed up by Craig Walker, the founder of GrandCentral, the company that eventually became Google Voice. “No one on the planet knows more about the mobile space than Rich,” Walker said. GV was an early investor.
The startup competes in the same space that RingCentral does, essentially offering a software-based phone system for businesses that’s a lot more flexible and mobile-friendly. It’s integrated with Google Apps and also with Microsoft’s Office 365, and has features for chat, voice calls, conferencing, sharing documents and video calls.
The Dialpad name dates back to an earlier company of that name founded in 1999 which focused on Internet calling that was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. “We’ve wanted to get ahold of the Dialpad name for awhile. Yahoo hadn’t been using it.” Walker said.
Aside from the investment from GV, Dialpad has raised a combined $53 million in three rounds from Andreessen Horowitz, Amasia, Felicis Ventures, Work-Bench and SoftBank. It has also started landing large customers. It will announce at a conference in Orlando that it has landed a 22,000-user deployment with Motorola Solutions.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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